Gathering

As those three disciples wallowed in regret elder Fan continued, stroking his beard all the while.

"As for the rest of you, from what you've heard you should have deduced this exploration shall be provided free of charge. This expedition will include other sects as well though- so be prepared for competition.

The two sects you might want to worry about are the Grey Hound sect and the Spirited Sun sect- especially the Spirited Sun sect. Our branch of the Fortunate Sky sect hasn't had much support since we haven't been able to send in any talents to the main branch for a long time now.

On the other hand the Spirited Sun sect has had many talents participate in the capital's tournaments. I believe they even have a new rising star this year and they'll send who ever they are into the small realm exploration team this time.

They wear grey colored robes and a dark red colored robes respectively. Any other types of robed cultivators will come from the minor sects in the area. To more easily identify your fellow sect members we shall provide you all with these inner disciple robes."

He flicked his sleeve and sets of clothing flew towards each and everyone of us.

Grabbing the flying set of clothing I realized there were two different versions. They had blue as the central color, but mine had black collars, cuffs, and sash. Looking over towards where I saw a color variation it was a woman who held it. The black was replaced with white instead for her.

Before I could turn away I felt a small yet sharp pain from my waist. When I glanced at where the pain came from an arm was spotted connected to my waist. Following the arm up Yao Ya stared at me with a pout.

"Who are you looking at? If you want to look at someone I'm right here!"

"Uh-No I just noticed something. It's that the colors of our sets were a little different."

"Do you want the white colored one? You can have mine then, you don't have to take that girl's set."

"It's okay! I was only looking that's all."

Everyone got their robes including those three disciples who fought earlier. Most people just held onto the robes while a couple of people immediately started to put them on.

As that happened elder Fan once again began to speak.

"Now about the small realm exploration, first I will give out a small amount of information for those who not informed on the subject.

There are a few different category of realms: Temporary realms, Permanent realms, and manmade realms. Permanent realms are usually monopolized by large sects for different reasons. It could be a realm filled with spiritual plants and herbs, a mineral mine of some sort, or training realms to improve your elemental control and understanding once any of you actually obtain an element of course. They usually don't disappear either."

'Wait, is he saying those elemental moves I saw from the tournament weren't real elements? What were they then?'

"The realm we have located is a Temporary one. They could have treasures hidden and guarded by creatures never seen before. It could be ancient ruins or just an exotic world with unknown creature inhabiting it. These realms could of course be switched around as well with a permanent ancient ruin world as well.

But temporary realms do have a limited amount of time until they will just disappear probably forever. The people inside when it happens don't usually come back unless they were extremely lucky and some how managed to reappear on the same planet.

Our realm we've found seems to last for a month, but time seems to go two times as slow inside for some reason. So five days inside will last ten outside. This one also appears to only open it's entrance twice, once at the start and once at the end of the time period.

Manmade realms as the name implies are made by people. The other two kinds may randomly appear while these are purposely placed. Most of the time these realms are entirely owned by clans or a sect.

This information about realms should suffice for now. When our sect enters the small realm we shall be spilt up into different groups to more thoroughly explore the realm. The groups shall consist of between five to seven members and the division of groups will be conducted by drawing lots.

Now that you are all Inner Disciples you all may of course move into the inner court. We shall accommodate you all with you're own residences. The rewards from the our tournament shall be delivered to your new residence in a day.

For now you should all return to the outer court, before night fall you shall be led to your new residence. That will be all for now prepare well for your upcoming expedition."

"Thank you elder Fan." Everyone cupped their hands as they then began to climb back down the stairs to the outer court.

…

Later that day a fellow disciple informed me of my new residence and I brought along everything I had over.

While heading up I noticed a board that showed the names and ranking of the top twenty who passed.

Liang Jia had gotten 10th, Qiu Tu had taken 7th, Rao Nuan miraculously took third, Chen Huang managed second, and what surprised me the most Yao Ya had taken first place! I mean I knew she was good, but that's amazing that she was able to defeat all the others!

'Maybe that's how they got along with the others so well. They managed to reach the top 50% of the passing candidates.'

Once I made it to the residence of the inner disciples I could already tell everything was of a much higher quality than outer court ones. Everyone had their own building that was a slightly larger size than the outer courts. The backyard also increased in size and we gained a small court yard in front of the building.

The insides had wooden furniture and a few decorations as well. The bed in the bedroom became larger and seemed softer. The interior no longer consisted of three rooms where two of the three were bedrooms and instead there were four.

The bed room, a small living room, a small dining room with a kitchen portion, and a small room to practice any auxiliary or subsidiary skills such as inscriptions.

Throughout the remaining amount of time I practiced those inscriptions and when reading through the book about them it seems that after the human tier paper inscriptions would no longer exist, instead they would entirely be in the talisman drawing auxiliary skill set. The inscription skill would continue on a different path.

Our group had gathered once during this time and discussed a plan.

We would most likely not end up in the same group so at least one of us would survive. The survivors who escaped would then go find Hu Daquan before setting back out to our homeland. By now our knowledge of this world should be sufficient. If they require a reason to go out we do whatever we can to convince them of letting us leave.

A member of the military should be able to convince the higher ups more easily than Yao Ya and I. With this newfound understanding on the world hopefully they won't do anything too drastic.

Maybe our world might start cultivating as well and gain some power before we're noticed by them.

Some how Yao Ya found my residence though without me even telling her. It must of been a coincidence she stumbled upon my residence.

…

=Day of Exploration=

Elder Fan was with a group of elders leading us quite far away from the sect towards a forest. The expedition team from our sect looks to be around 200 disciples of uneven genders. It was around a 3 -2 spilt between the men and women- not as bad as I thought it was going to be. We walked in two columns one with the black clothing sets and one with the white ones.

Our expeditionary team walked for half an hour before we made it to a clearing where we could clearly see multiple groups already gathered and waiting. I scoured through the clothing worn by them and saw that none of them wore the grey robes or dark red robes elder Fan spoke of. All I saw were some blue, brown or dark yellow.

"Gather around we will now begin drawing lots to determine which team you will belong to!" An elder up front projected his voice towards us.

Hearing the command our two columns shuffled forward towards them to get our teams. I was around ten meters away from one of the areas where the drawings were happening when a new force approached from another direction wearing grey robes. The drawing stopped for a few moments as everyone turned to check out the newly arriving force.